Thursday, May 24, 2007

When Two-Face weeps tears of blood: a soap opera

When I moved to this house in January 2000, it was bad enough to discover the house had a resident, but benevolent, ghost. But now the soap in the bathroom is literally weeping red-tinged tears!

A few weeks after settling in, a friend - I can't even remember who - gave me a little housewarming gift, of some wacky character soaps they'd found in a close-out sale. Beautifully packed, there was a vibrant, lolly pink Two-Face bas relief soap (the image of Tommy Lee Jones from "Batman Forever"), and a vibrant, bright green Buzz Lightyear bas relief soap (from "Toy Story"). Neither soap fitted the colour scheme of either bathroom, so the soaps stayed in the linen press for a while, but I eventually removed the wrappers and put them out on display near the bathtub.

And there they've sat, unused, for over five years. Now, we've all heard too many news items about religious statues weeping blood, or oil, or holy water. But this week, I noticed a puddle of red stains under Two-Face. Upon closer inspection, he was covered with large red drips, although it's clear that the soap has never been used in water, and it has not been accidentally splashed. The whole bar of soap has begun "sweating" red liquid. I guess it's finally reached its "Use By" date? One of the drips has now trailed a red trickle all the way down the inside of the bath.

A quick check of the back of Buzz Lightyear revealed some small green-toned beads of sweat, so at least - Whew! - I can assume the red drips on the pink soap are not some harbinger of a Doomsday visitation by the spirit of Two-Face.

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About me

Otherwise known as "Therin of Andor", Ian McLean has had an active association with "Star Trek" and science fiction media fandom in Australia since 1980. Before then he was an avid fan of the "Batman" TV series (60s) and the Australian TV classic, "Number 96" (70s).